DC Mayor Signs Decriminalization Bill

By
Phillip Smith, Stop the Drug War
on April 2, 2014

Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray Monday signed the marijuana decriminalization bill passed last month by the city council. It’s not quite a done deal yet, though — Congress has 60 working days to object, but to stop the bill, it must pass a resolution blocking it, and President Obama must sign it. So it appears likely that the nation’s capital will have decriminalized pot possession by the time Congress leaves town for the August recess.

“DC lawmakers heard loud and clear the public’s demand to end marijuana arrests and passed one of the strongest decriminalization laws in the whole country, said Grant Smith, policy manager with the Drug Policy Alliance. We don’t expect members of Congress to object to saving taxpayer dollars and advancing racial justice here in the nation’s capital.”

The decriminalization bill, the Marijuana Possession Decriminalization Amendment Act of 2014 (Council Bill 20-409) makes possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a civil offense punishable by a fine of only $25 (the cheapest of any decriminalization state). It also explicitly prohibits police from using the smell of marijuana as a pretext for stopping and searching people.

The bill advanced through the DC political process on a wave of concern that marijuana laws in the nation’s capital were being enforced in a racially discriminatory fashion and is seen by council members and advocates alike as a model for reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Those grim realities were at the forefront as a broad spectrum of DC faith, community, and advocacy groups greeted Mayor Gray’s signing of the bill.

“Passage of this law gets to the unspoken imbalances in our justice system for people of color and it is the voice of the people who ensured its passage,” said Collective Power, a grassroots alliance of District residents concerned about the disproportionate criminalization and discrimination of communities of color. “The District of Columbia must be at the forefront of decriminalizing ‘being black and brown’ and this is the start.”

“The passing of the decriminalization marijuana bill is the first step in the right direction to dismantling the immoral war on drugs that has devastated communities of color,” said Rev. Kelly D. Wilkins with the Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ.